Phil-for-Short (1919) Online

Damophilia or "Phil" for short is a modern girl who works the farm, wears boys clothes, and likes to perform a Greek dance dressed in toga and bare feet, much to the shock of local aging busybodies who think her attire too revealing. One of these busybodies, an old man who is a bit of a lecher it seems, makes an offer to her father on his death bed to take care of Phil by "marrying her". Instead he becomes her legal guardian by adopting her, but she soon dresses as a boy and runs away from home where she meets a young Greek professor on the road who thinks she is male. Then dressed as Damophilia, twin sister of Phil the boy, she gets hired as his assistant based on her knowledge of Greek taught to her by her father, a well known Greek professor himself. She is mighty interested in our young professor but it seems he has been burned once too often by women and is under the impression that no woman can be trusted and women are always out to make a man seem a fool - how will plucky Phil win him over?

This is a completely enjoyable film, I think Evelyn Greeley, who plays the part of Phil, is really charming and fun to watch in this - the acting quality as a whole is very good here. I also found the couple of scenes with Phil and some of her female "students" performing Greek dances interesting to watch. I actually would have liked to have seen a little more of the cross-dressing, duel brother/sister mix-up - there's more I think they could have done with this whole plot idea than they do. Still, this film is loads of fun and well worth seeing.

This film, released a year before the 19th Amendment was passed, is a delightfully pro-feminist work. The heroine, Damophilia Illington (Phil for short), is a hard-working, supremely intelligent woman. Her father, a Greek professor, has trained her well in the classics, and Phil can hold her own with any college graduate. When Phil's father dies unexpectedly, the stuffy town banker, who wants to marry Phil, has himself declared her guardian. (How he does this when he is not related to Phil is unclear; when this film was made, however, this may have been a common practice.) Phil promptly dresses as a boy and runs away from home, finding a job at a nearby university (after returning to female garb). She is the assistant to a Greek professor, John Alden, who is still smarting over the recent breakup of his engagement to a duplicitous woman. Alden is now firmly misogynistic, but Phil's intelligence, charm, and wit gradually win him over. Lots of fun to watch.